Sports Briefs

The Illinois State volleyball team will travel to Madison, Wisconsin, to take on Marquette in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, the Redbirds learned Sunday night.

The match will be played at the University of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Field House Thursday at 5 p.m.

Illinois State (26-5) will play in the Louisville Region, and the winner of the Redbirds’ match with Marquette (24-8), will take on the winner of Wisconsin (28-2) and Western Michigan (22-13), on Friday at 7 p.m. The bracket was revealed in a live broadcast Sunday night on ESPNU.

Illinois State carries a school-record 22-match winning streak into the NCAA Tournament, the second-longest active winning streak in Division I volleyball. The Redbirds won their first Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles since 1997 this season.

The Redbirds played Marquette last season, losing a five-set match in Milwaukee, Wis., on Sept. 25. ISU won the only other meeting between the two teams, a 3-1 victory on Sept. 18, 2001 at Redbird Arena.

Tide reaches top of AP poll for 7th straight year

Alabama is No. 1 in The Associated Press college football poll for the first time this season, replacing undefeated Florida State in a vote that was about as close as it could get.

The Crimson Tide (11-1) received 25 of a possible 59 first-place votes from the media panel and 1,426 points. The Seminoles (12-0) have 29 first-place votes and 1,423 points.

The last time the No. 2 team had more first-place votes than the No. 1 team this late in the season was Nov. 25, 1968, when No. 1 Ohio State had 21 1/2 first-places votes to Southern California’s 24 1/2.

Alabama is No. 1 for the 72nd time overall and first since it lost last year’s Iron Bowl. The Tide beat Auburn 55-44 on Saturday.

It is also the seventh straight season the Crimson Tide has been No. 1 at some point, the longest such streak since Miami from 1986-92.

Florida State is the first team to lose the No. 1 ranking twice in a season since Penn State in 1997.

The last time a No. 1 team had a loss and No. 2 was undefeated this late in the season was Nov. 27, 1993, when Florida State (11-1) held the top spot and Nebraska (11-0) was No. 2.

Those Seminoles, who lost to Notre Dame a few weeks prior, went on to beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and win the national title.

No. 3 Oregon received five first-place votes in the latest poll. TCU jumped two spot to No. 4. Baylor slipped one to No. 5 and Ohio State moved up one to No. 6. No. 7 is Michigan State, followed by Arizona and Kansas State. Mississippi State fell six places to No. 10 after losing to Mississippi.